The present invention relates in general to a photographic camera and in particular to an automatic film feeding apparatus for feeding a photographic film strip automatically to a frame at which photographing is to be initiated in response to the closing of a rear cover of the camera after the film has been loaded therein.
As an apparatus for winding a photographic film up to a frame at which the photographing is to be initiated after the film has been placed in a photographic camera, there has been hitherto known an idle feeding mechanism for photographic cameras of a manual winding-up type in which the automatic stopping of the film feeding is effected with the aid of mechanical frame detection and a mechanical stopper. Consequently, the prior art apparatus suffers from disadvantages in that a complicated mechanism is required to realize desired coupling and disconnection, involving expense and instability in operation.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an automatic film feeding apparatus which is capable of automatically feeding a loaded film to a frame at which the photographing is to be initiated with a much simplified and reliable arrangement by making use of an existing motor drive mechanism of a motor drive type photographic camera.
Now, the invention will be described in detail by referring to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention by way of example only.